Once I had finished telling Catherine my perspective of what had happened, she turned to the other two and asked if there was anything different, they wanted to add. In the end there were only a couple of minor things that they had disagreed with, but they were mostly just a slight difference in perspective or something that I had outright missed while I was fighting.

“Well it seems like you agree on the main points,” Catherine said calmly once we had finished going over the differences. “And I didn’t get a reaction from my Interrogation Orb.”

“Interrogation Orb?” Fern asked cocking her head to one side. “Does that work like Zeke’s Sense Truth Skill?”

“That’s right,” Catherine agreed as she pointed at a small transparent orb sitting on her desk. “Interrogation Orbs are a special tool that are made for the guards that light up whenever someone nearby lies. Like many similar tools they can only be activated by someone who has been given permission to activate them.”

“Wow, you guys have a lot of things that would be really useful back in our world,” I noted looking at the Orb which was slightly larger than a Soul Core. Back when the first AI’s had been made some groups had tried to push the idea of an AI that could determine when someone was lying but in the end it was decided that doing so could cause a lot of problems because people who had protested the idea claimed that there was no way to truly verify that the AI was programmed the way that people claimed it had which I personally thought was a bit farfetched but then I hadn’t been old enough to vote at the time. Although come to think of it I guess my Sense Truth Skill worked like that in some ways.

“You don’t have anything like this?” Catherine asked frowning at me in consternation.

“Well, technically yes but they’re not used unless the person actually agrees to be tested and even then, it’s not really something that’s admissible in court,” I replied. “There were a bunch of people who claimed that anything that could do something like that was too invasive and a violation of human rights and that there was no true way to make sure that what it said was truly accurate.”

“That makes no sense!” Catherine exclaimed with an incredulous look on her face that told me just how stupid she thought that was. “Why would people want to make something that falsely accused people of a crime?”

“Well if people can commit crimes then what’s stopping them from trying to accuse others of doing the same thing?” Evie asked. “I’m not actually saying that there are very many people who would because I think that the vast majority of us want to see real criminals behind bars, but I can see why some people would say that it was possible.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Catherine grumbled. “Besides surely it would be more of a… what did you call it? A human rights violation if people got away with crimes because there was no way to prove that they were lying?”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” I sighed. “But nonetheless that was what was decided by the people who were in charge of the country that we live in at the time.”

Fern was watching our conversation with a look of mild amusement on her face, but I had her nodding slightly in agreement with the things that we had been saying which was actually a bit surprising to me. In groups like this which had basically been created at random there was at least one person who disagreed with my point of view but from what the girls had been saying they mostly seemed to agree with my point of view.be

“Well I suppose that’s all we can really do until some other victims come forwards,” Catherine sighed. “I’ll talk with the captain and see if we can arrange for you three to be rewarded somehow.”

“Wait really?” Fern asked interestedly. “There’s a reward?”

“I don’t see why not,” Catherine shrugged. “Those three seem to be dangerous and it was only a matter of time before they decided to try and attack a local instead of you outsiders which would’ve turned out far worse. They’d be able to make a lot more money killing or robbing locals after all. Well for now at least I hear some of you outsiders are quite crafty when it comes to trading and your ability to come back to life means that you don’t have to worry so much about doing more dangerous jobs.”

Trust me,” I grumbled. “Dying is still unpleasant even if you come back afterwards.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that,” Catherine chuckled as she saw the sour expression on my face. “Anyway, you’re free to go.”

“Before we do is there any chance, can I ask you what the best places to buy new gear in town are?” I asked.

“What sort of things are you looking for?”

“Leather and Cloth Armours as well as Soul Cores, especially Magic ones,” I replied.

“Pass your map over and I’ll mark my favourite places, just tell them that I sent you,” Catherine said. “They’ll give you a good price.”

“Thanks,” I replied as I passed over my map while the other two watched on interestedly.

“For Leather and Cloth Armours there’s a couple of great little stalls in the marketplace which I recommend that you check out, they sell some pretty good stuff if you have a budget. There is a larger store in town but they’re probably too expensive for you three yet and the best place to buy Magic Cores is old man Kerr’s store,” Catherine explained as she handed it back. “He’s a bit of an old grump but he knows his stuff, just try not to make him angry or he’ll kick you out.”

“Thanks Catherine,” I replied. “You’ve been a great help.”

“Bah, you’re the one whose brought in more criminals in the past two days than some of my men do in a month,” Catherine laughed as she waved us out the door. “This is the least I can do.”

“Well then,” I said as Catherine closed the door behind us. “Shall we go and get some new gear?”

“Sounds like a plan to me boss,” Fern replied happily.

“Sure,” Evie agreed. “I’m not too sure what I’m going to get but we can talk about that on the way.”

As we walked away from the gatehouse, I noticed the guy that had helped us out by fetching the guards watching us, so I pointed him out to the others. After a quick conversation we decided to head and thank him together. There were still a number of other players that I vaguely recognised from earlier who seemed to be surprised that we were exiting the gatehouse without an escort of guards and the long-haired man that I had pointed out looked up warily as we approached.

“Hello, there we’d like to thank you for getting the guards earlier things would’ve gotten nasty if you hadn’t,” I said once we were in earshot.

“Didn’t really do it for you,” he shrugged. “I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt if things went south.”

“Well thank you anyway, we appreciated your help” I replied. “Those two attacked us out of nowhere and I’m pretty sure that we’re not their only victims which is why we took the risk of bringing them in.”

“Well, I hope that you’re right because a lot of the players who were here aren’t very happy with you,” he said shrugging again. “Your reputation around town has probably already been ruined, at least with most of the players.”

“You’re probably right but it’s still better than what would’ve happened if we had just killed them,” I pointed out. “Then they would’ve just called us out as Player killers.”

“Maybe,” he agreed with the same bored look on his face that he’d had the whole time. “I don’t actually disagree with what you did but maybe there was a better way to do it?”

“Sure, there probably was,” I shrugged. “But I couldn’t think of a better method that we actually had access to right now so…”

“Well, good luck I guess,” he replied. “But I don’t want to get involved with what I suspect is going to turn into one hell of a shitstorm. So, no offence but I’m going to leave now.”

With that he walked away leaving me staring after him with a bemused look on my face. There were plenty of odd people that played games like this but even then, he stood out as different.

“Well he was certainly an interesting character, wasn’t he?” Fern murmured softly. “He’s probably right about this turning into a shitstorm though.”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely going to happen,” I sighed. “Oh well nothing we can do about it right now. Shall we get going then?”

The other two agreed and we started walking through town towards the marketplace but on the way there I noticed that Evie was looking a bit downcast.

“Still having doubts about what we did?” I asked as we walked along.

“Not exactly, I think we did the right thing bringing them in, but I don’t like the idea that people are going to think that we are the bad guys,” she replied shaking her head sadly.

I nodded my head in agreement. I wasn’t looking forward to heading back to the inn which was where we were going to run into the most players but right now there wasn’t anything that we could do about how we were going to be viewed so we would just have to deal with it for now. Even just walking down the street like this I noticed that there were even more people glaring at us than there had been earlier which didn’t bode well.

“Well what sort of equipment were you thinking about getting?” I asked deciding that changing the subject was a better idea than letting Evie dwell on this sort of thing.

“Well I’m the only ranged fighter in our group so I was thinking that it might be a better idea if I got another weapon instead of armour, for now at least.”

“Normally I wouldn’t recommend that,” I admitted. “But if you’re confident enough in my abilities then we could at least look into getting you a new weapon. Any ideas on what sort you want?”

“I saw some other players with some walking around with guns,” Evie replied making my eyebrow raise slightly in surprise. “If I had one of those then I could wield both of my weapons at the same time.”

“Hmm, dual wielding isn’t easy,” I replied before turning to look at Fern. “What do you think?”

“Well, the idea itself is a good one,” Fern replied as she rubbed her chin. “But yeah, dual wielding is difficult for some people and that goes double for ranged weapons.”

Seeing Evie’s face drop at her words she smiled and patted her friend on the back.”

“No reason that we can’t give it a shot though,” she continued giving Evie a small smile. “It would be a good addition to your capabilities.”

“It’s decided then,” I nodded. I had no reason to disagree with what Fern had said, she was better at dual wielding than I would ever be so deferring to her just made sense. It was obvious that they considered me to be the party leader but that didn’t mean that I was going to force anything onto them and besides I had always been taught that the best leaders listened to the advice of others when they knew better.

“Okay!” Evie exclaimed as a smile reappeared on her face making me realise how much I had missed seeing her happy on the way back to town. I didn’t think that I was falling for her or anything, but she was just the sort of person whose emotions had a tendency to affect those around her whether she wanted them to or not.

When we made it to the marketplace, we quickly sold off the skins and teeth that we had looted from the rabbits which earned us 1 silver and 5 coppers before I headed off to sell the meat to the innkeeper by myself. Evie’s smile had only just returned, and I knew that the rumours of what had happened at the town gates had probably already made it to the inn so I decided that I could deal with that myself and let the other two get some shopping done without me. I even left them with another of the silver coins that I had, I was pretty sure that I would get at least 2 silver coins for the meat that we had so I wasn’t too worried about the loss. Besides if they did decide to get a new weapon for Evie in the end even that might not be enough. I shook my head as I realised that I had yet to find out how much the basic weapons like the ones that we got in the tutorial even cost. Oh well I guess I’ll find out when I come back. Chances were, we wouldn’t be able to afford more than one new piece of gear each but even that would be a big boost to our combat potential at the moment.

As I walked down the street, I felt Katy create a link between us so that we could talk. It was the first time that I had noticed that there was a certain sensation when she was doing this which almost made me trip over my own feet in surprise before I realised what was going on.

“Hey Zeke, I just finished up in the tutorial!” She told me as I righted myself.

“That’s great!” I replied. “But what took you so long?”

“Well the tutorial is a bit different for AI’s because we have to learn to fight with a body which is something that we’re not used to. Also, unlike you I took the time to try out every weapon and magic type that I could get my hands on,” she replied making me roll my eyes. That was one bad thing about that way that I had rushed through the tutorial, I hadn’t had the chance to have a proper look at everything that was available and I had grumbled about it the other morning when we had been going over the different types of magic that were available in game so I wasn’t surprised that Katy had taken her time just to rub it in. Actually, she had probably done it for my benefit, but I knew that wouldn’t stop her from teasing me about it.

“Alright I’ll meet you at the inn,” I told her.

“Already on my way,” she laughed. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“Yeah can’t wait to introduce you to my friends!” I replied her laughter putting a smile back on my face despite what I was expecting to be confronted by when I arrived at the inn.

“And I can’t wait to meet them!’ Katy gushed. “Don’t get me wrong you’re great but you’re also the only person I’ve ever really talked to for any length of time so meeting new people is very exciting for me.”

“Yeah that makes sense,” I agreed as I approached the inn and blinked when I saw katy there waiting for me. She didn’t look any different than she did when she was in my personal space which through me off momentarily before I realised that she was an AI, she had no reason to change the way that she looked unlike human players like myself.

“Hey Katy, I see that you chose a bow as your first weapon after all,” I noted looking at the weapon that she had slung over her shoulder which was nearly identical to the ones that other players who had chosen a bow carried.

“Yeah I also have a knife for if someone attacks me up close,” she replied as she pulled the aforementioned weapon halfway from the sheathe to show me.

“Good idea,” I nodded. “I’ll be counting on you to protect Evie until I can cover you if something goes wrong then.”

“That was the plan,” she agreed. “Shall we sell that meat then?”

“Yeah,” I agreed as I opened the door for Katy to step through first which made her snort in amusement.

Sure, enough when I stepped up to the counter, I was confronted by someone who I was assuming from his ridiculously broad chest and good looks was a player.

“So, you’re the guy that was trying to capture players for some reason, are you?” He growled. “How exactly did you convince the guards to not imprison you eh?

Wrinkling my nose as his sour breath washed over me, I rolled my eyes in irritation. Of course, this idiot had been drinking. Seriously there were better things to be doing with your time in a game than sitting around getting drunk, a few drinks at the end of a long days hunting was one thing but it wasn’t even evening yet and this guy was already drunk!

“Maybe you should go and ask the guards that,” I suggested irritably and instantly regretted my snark when he immediately punched me hard enough to knock me off my feet eliciting surprised squawks from both Katy as well as Milly who rushed over from where she had been waiting on tables.

“And maybe you shouldn’t talk back to your betters!” he boasted as many of the other people in the taproom laughed at my plight only to fall silent as a small crossbow bolt flew past the player’s head.

“I don’t see any of Zeke’s betters here young man so maybe you should watch your tongue before I call the guards,” Conrad warned the player who was clasping a hand to the side of his cheek where the crossbow bolt had grazed him as he casually reloaded the small hand crossbow he was holding with practiced movements making me blink in surprise. If Conrad was as good with that crossbow as he seemed, then why had he needed me to help him out when Milly was being harassed? Then again, a single man attacking a group of people armed with only a crossbow was probably a bad idea but he could’ve at least helped me!

“What was that for old man!?” The player snarled angrily even as his friends quickly ran up to grab him before he could do anything too foolish. “Why are you siding with a criminal huh!?”

“This man has been helping the guards so I very much doubt that he is a criminal no matter what you’ve been told,” Conrad replied in a matter of fact tone.

“Dude, you need to calm down,” said one of the other players who were holding back the idiot who had punched me. “This is no reason to get banned from the inn.”

“Oh, shut up!” The drunken idiot snarled in reply. “You’re not my keeper!”

“Fine then,” the player sighed as he released his friend. “You can do whatever you want, I’m not part of this.”

As Katy helped me to my feet the player started to calm down which was probably helped by the fact that Conrad was now pointing the freshly reloaded crossbow at his head.

“I think that you might have had enough to drink, young man,” the innkeeper told the player whose gaze was locked onto the business end of the crossbow. It looked like he was starting to realise that messing with Conrad was probably a bad idea. “Maybe you should leave.”

“Fine!” He spat shrugging off the people holding him back who all refused to look him in the eye as he turned around and stomped over towards the door.

“But I won’t forget this,” he shot back over his shoulder before slamming the door behind him.

“Well that was exciting,” Conrad snorted putting the crossbow back behind the bar as the people who had been holding the drunken idiot back shuffled back to their seats glancing back nervously over their shoulders as they did so, after making sure that I was alright Milly did the same although I could see from the look on her face that the patrons who had been with the man were in for a scolding which would be quite amusing to watch considering some of them were almost twice her size. “Anyway, how can I help you Zeke?”

“Well I’ve had more than enough excitement for the day,” I grumbled as I placed a small sack of meat on the bar. “I have some more rabbit meat for you.”

“Excellent!” Conrad said as he picked up the sack of meat. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just take this to the kitchen to figure out how much I owe you.”

“That’s fine Conrad,” I groaned as I cracked my jaw. “I trust you.”

“Well thanks kid, here’s a drink on the house while you wait,” he chuckled as he poured me and Katy a beer. “My way of apologising for what happened earlier, I should have cut him off a few drinks ago.”

“Thanks,” I replied as Katy and I sat down to wait for him to return.

As I took a long draw of the beer, I thought about what had just happened with the drunken player. I had been acting more and more confident lately or as that incident had shown cocky and that was a problem. Getting cocky lead to me making mistakes like getting punched in the face by some drunken idiot. If I had been thinking about what I was doing, he wouldn’t have been able to so much as lay a finger on me in his state even if I had been stupid enough to rile him up like I had ended up doing.

“Are you alright?” Katy whispered. “It looked like he hit you pretty hard.”

“Not as hard as it looked like he did,” I replied shaking my head wryly. “It barely even took 5 points off of my HP. I was just caught off guard which was why I ended up on the floor.”

“Okay that’s alright then,” she replied before hiccupping slightly as she took another gulp of her beer making me look at her in surprise.

“Katy,” I said carefully as my AI started to sway from side to side. “Are you drunk?”

“Hmm, what are you talking about silly,” she giggled as she looked at me with slightly unfocussed eyes. “AI’s can’t get drunk, you know that.”

“Yeah, so you’re definitely drunk,” I told her as I quickly snatched the mug of beer away from her causing her to frown cutely at me. “Besides if AI’s couldn’t get drunk in this game then why would they drink?”

“Heey,” she slurred as she attempted to retrieve her beer from me, but I quickly put it behind the bar as far out of her reach as I possibly could. “Give that back.”

“Nope, I think that you’re done young lady,” I snorted as Conrad opened the door and smirked when he saw what was going on.

“Oh dear, looks like someone is a bit of a lightweight,” he chuckled in amusement as he watched Katy try to steal her drink back from me to no avail. “Anyway, here’s the money that I owe you. You got lucky this time, some of that meat was of good enough quality that it was classed as an Uncommon Ingredient so that means that I owe you 3 silver coins this time.

“Yeah, I noticed that, I wasn’t expecting to get that much money for them though” I replied as I took the small bag of coins from the counter and placed it in my Inventory without even looking inside it. Even if I wasn’t in a game that would automatically keep track of how much money I had I wouldn’t have bothered to check it, I knew that Conrad wasn’t going to short-change me after what I had done for him and his daughter.

“Well I’m giving you the right amount,” Conrad shrugged. “Maybe you missed a couple of pieces?”

“That’s possible I didn’t actually check all of them come to think of it,” I agreed. “Alright katy let’s go.”

“But Zeke,” Katy whined as I got to my feet. “Do we have to go just yet?”

“Didn’t you say that you wanted to meet the girls?” I asked my very obviously inebriated AI with a laugh. “Come on let’s go.”

“Fine,” she sighed as she staggered to her feet which prompted me to prop her up. “Let’s do that then.”

Grumbling to myself about the drunks that I had to deal with today I helped her over towards the door much to the amusement of Conrad and Milly who back waiting on tables now that things had calmed down.

Now that katy was with me in game I could see that my life was only going to get even more interesting from here which drew a world-weary sigh from my lips as I exited the door to the inn. Now I just had to introduce her to the girls, hopefully without her throwing up on me or anyone else.